Some workers at local hospitals were given holiday breaks by volunteers from B'nai B'rith Mahoning Lodge 339. The service organization volunteered to work at gift shops and information desks at four area hospitals so staff members could spend their holidays with their family members.

Neil Altman, a co-coordinator of Operation Snowflake, said the local B'nai B'rith lodge has been doing this since 1978.

"We had about 20 volunteers at the four hospitals this year," Altman said. "Our volunteers really enjoyed themselves."

When superstar Christian author Donald Miller leveled a host of unsubstantiated charges against Israel in a blog post November 21 (www.storylineblog.com), many Evangelicals were caught off guard.

After all, how could “one of them” attack Israel in such a fashion and seemingly maintain his status among, primarily, 20-somethings? Miller’s post didn’t catch the members of a recent delegation to Israel off guard. A trend among younger Christians to identify with the Palestinians was one of the reasons a unique group met at a picturesque kibbutz resort outside Jerusalem.

Dubbed the Jerusalem Consultation on the Mainline Protestant Churches and the State of Israel, the meeting, held November 5-8, featured pro-Israel activists from around the world, including Assyrian and Coptic Christians, European pastors and Umar Mulinde, the Ugandan pastor burned in an acid attack outside his church in Kampala on Christmas eve, 2011.

The consultation was considered a breakthrough in the sharing of ideas and experiences and networking opportunities. Organized by Dr. Petra Heldt of The Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity, and Alan Schneider, director of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, the consultation featured addresses from the attendees and tours of the country...more.

On a wintry day at a small Iowa shul in November of 2003, John Kerry got all verklempt.

The man whose opponents had taken to depicting as aloof and patrician, whose campaign for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination had been all but written off by that point, leapt onto the dais at Tifereth Israel synagogue in Des Moines. Kerry delivered an emotional account of his then-recent discovery that his grandfather was Jewish and recalled how, on a visit to Israel standing atop Masada, he had cried out, “Am Yisrael Chai!”

Daniel Mariaschin, who directs B’nai B’rith International, said he hoped that as secretary of state Kerry would show awareness of the uncertainties roiling the region, particularly in Egypt, where the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has asserted control, and in Syria, which is mired in civil war.

“I would hope that as secretary of state, at least on questions related to Israel, he would take into account the fast-moving variables,” Mariaschin said...more.

A Jewish community strongly supportive of gun control plus Jewish lawmakers eager to enact new gun control laws may bring Jews into a lead role as the nation debates federal measures to rein in mass murders at its malls and schools.

The new openness to legislation and other measures following the slaughter of 26 elementary school children and school staff in Newtown, Conn. — plus the killer’s mother — is welcomed by most Jewish organizations, which have long supported gun control. But in recent years, with the prospects for progress on this front all but hopeless until the December murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, those organizations have been largely passive on the issue.

Now, activists are fighting to seize the moment and get gun control back on the front burner.

“There has been an ebb and flow of activism on this issue,” said Dan Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International, one of the groups calling for legislation to limit the sales of assault weapons. “It is an issue we as a community care deeply about, but it didn’t find itself at the top of the agenda of Jewish groups.”...more.

Friday's mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., has drawn calls from Jewish groups for tighter gun control laws, along with words of sympathy for the families of victims.

B'nai B'rith called for reinstatement of the ban. At the time it lapsed, "1,100 police chiefs and sheriffs from across the country urged the law be renewed and strengthened. Other meaningful, enforceable gun control measures are also needed," its statement read...more.

The flurry of proposals for responding to the massacre in Newtown, Conn., have come from all quarters: the White House, members of Congress, advocacy organizations, religious leaders, governors and state and county legislators.Specifics are hard to come by in some cases. But taken together, the suggestions for legislative and executive action foreshadow a broad political debate about assault weapons, ammunition, violent video games, shoot-em-up movies, gun shows, mental health services, and permits for concealed firearms. Much of the national discussion this week has focused on a comprehensive approach, rather than just new gun controls....• Increase access to mental health services. Several religious groups have issued statements urging new laws or regulations, and some have been specific. B’nai B’rith International, a major Jewish organization, on Monday called for a new assault weapons ban. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs said in a petition that it wants, among other things, better access to quality mental health care.